Mr. HALE. If it is necessary in order to raise this bonus, the Veterans of Foreign Wars believe the ex-soldiers should have precedence over the Government clerks.

Mr. RAINEY. How about the railroad employees, and employees generally, who stand for such a rearrangement of industry as would enable them to get some money out of the Treasury of the United States?

Mr. HALE. Do you mean as opposing the American Federation of Labor?

Mr. RAINEY. As opposing anything that stands for that kind of proposition, because some of us must be responsible for opposing it? Mr. HALE. Well, will you illustrate to me just exactly how you would wish our organization to assist you in defeating those things? Mr. RAINEY. I am not arranging any program for you. I am simply asking if we could rely upon your assistance?

Mr. HALE. Well, I want to know what help you want, and then I can tell you whether we can grant it or not.

Mr. RAINEY. Can we depend on any moral support from your organization in our efforts to economize?

Mr. HALE. You can depend on every assistance we can give.

Mr. RAINEY. Can we depend on any moral support from your organization when a large body of men demand money out of the Treasury of the United States?

Mr. HALE. Whenever the Government of the United States is assailed, no matter from what source, and you need the support, moral or otherwise, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, you can have it.

Mr. RAINEY. Well, if we yield to the demands of the Government clerks, and yield to the demands of the American Federation of Labor, and to the demands of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the demands that you now make, it will mean an addition to our annual expenditure which we can hardly estimate at the present time; we do not know what it will be; at any rate, it will more than equal the entire prewar expenses of carrying on this Government. Would you favor increasing in these particulars the national budget to the amount of our prewar expenditures in these few particulars that I have enumerated?

Mr. HALE. To satisfy the demands for increased compensation by the railroad employees and the Government clerks?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes; and of the foreign war soldiers.

Mr. HALE. And the service men?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. HALE. I should say, in answer to that, give first consideration to the service men; and if the Government finds itself unable to meet the other demands and the other demands are unjust, then Congress should refuse to grant them.

Mr. RAINEY. Now, when we have compensated the service men who have had monetary losses-and I understand you now say that will mean everyone in the service, because they have all sustained monetary losses how long will that compensation last, for how many years? What other demands will there be in the future? Mr. HALE. How long will that compensation last?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes; how long will it be before your organization is asking for service pensions?

Mr. HALE. You are asking me questions that it is impossible to answer. That is in the future. At the present time, I will say that we have no idea of asking for pensions. The war-risk compensation act is supposed to take care of the disabled men; provision has already been made for that.

Mr. RAINEY. My inclinations are to comply with your suggestions and the suggestions of your organization about compensating these men for their monetary losses. But when they are compensated, will they be compensated once and for all, and will that end the demands that your organization will make?

Mr. HALE. As far as the able-bodied men are concerned.

Mr. RAINEY. As far as the able-bodied men are concerned?
Mr. HALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. In all of our wars we have paid a service pension. In the Civil War we paid a service pension, whether a man was injured or not, which commenced a certain number of years after the war. Do you think we ought to do that in the case of the World War Veterans?

Mr. HALE. Not in view of the bureau that you have created, and the privileges you have given them under the war-risk act, and the Vocational-training act.

Mr. RAINEY. I regard their services as being of as great value and benefit to the country as the services of our veterans of any other war. Would it be fair to pay service pensions to the veterans of the Civil War and not pay service pensions to the veterans of the World War?

Mr. HALE. Mr. Rainey, I have tried to make myself clear on that. You made no provision at the time of the Civil War for vocational education of soldiers or for war-risk insurance; but you have given the veterans of this war those privileges.

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. HALE. And it was specifically stated, I believe, that the object of that act was to prevent applications for pensions.

Mr. RAINEY. It was so stated; but that is not binding upon future Congresses; neither is it binding upon organizations of soldiers.

Mr. HALE. Well, what may develop in the future it is impossible for me to state at the present time. I do not know what the future will develop. I would not want to go on record as saying

Mr. RAINEY. You would not want to commit your organization to the policy of not demanding in the future for all the Veterans of Foreign Wars service pensions, would you?

Mr. HALE. I would not be justified; I have no instructions to that effect.

Mr. RAINEY. If, in addition to this compensation which you are now demanding, which will probably amount to a couple of billion dollars, we should pay service pensions at the rate of $12 per month in the near future to the soldiers of the World War, that would represent over half a billion dollars a year-if we only paid them $12 as a service pension, which we started to pay soldiers of the Civil War. If we should pay them as much service pension as we now propose pay soldiers of the Civil War, which is $50 per month, it would make an annual charge on the Treasury, if we started it in the near future, of something like $3,000,000,000, in all probability.

to

So we are entitled to know, in framing up this legislation, we think, what these organizations like yours will stand for in reference to future service pensions; whether or not you are going to demand them. These organizations of soldiers will get almost what they demand, because there are so many of them; and so we want to know whether you are going to demand it in the future or whether you are not going to demand it.

Mr. HALE. At present, we have no intention of making any such demand, and it has never been discussed.

Mr. RAINEY. think it is very important for us to know that, and know definitely what is the present and future policy of these great organizations in these particulars.

Now, these hearings will last for a couple of weeks at least, in all probability. Can you ascertain from your organization-from its representatives here in Washington or elsewhere what its future policy will be with reference to service pensions, provided we reimburse the monetary losses of soldiers of the World War at the present time?

Mr. HALE. Yes; and will you ask the other organizations to go on record in the same way?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes; I would like to do that.

Mr. HALE. All right, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. I will do that.

Mr. HALE. We would not want to be the only ones.

Mr. RAINEY (continuing). Because the amount of compensation given now ought to depend largely on the position these great organizations will take with reference to future demands in the way of service pensions.

Mr. HALE. It may take a week to get that information.

The CHAIRMAN. if you will permit me to interrupt, it is now 12 o'clock, and there are two other gentlemen in the room who will have to leave town this afternoon who want to be heard; and when Mr. Rainey has concluded his questions we will recess until half-past 2, and hear these gentlemen this afternoon.

Mr. GARNER. We will have Mr. Hale come back later, will we not, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; we can hear him further later. Are there any other questions to be asked Mr. Hale now?

Mr. RAINEY. I want to ask him one or two more questions now: Your organization, Mr. Hale, collects a very large amount of money each year, and it is taking an interest now in public matters. What disposition does it make of so large a sum of money as $750,000?

Mr. HALE. Well, when I say we have 750,000 members, that does not mean that we have $750,000, because most of those members have come in within the last four or five months, and their per capita tax is collected at the rate of 25 cents a quarter.

Mr. RAINEY. Is it the purpose to accumulate this fund in your treasury?

Mr. HALE. No, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. You intend to spend it every year, do you?

Mr. HALE. That is another question that would have to be determined by the national organization, and I can not answer it because I am not an officer of the national organization. Mr. RAINEY. How is it being disbursed now?

Mr. HALE. It goes for the support of the national headquarters; it goes for the expenses of the men who are carrying on a membership drive; it supports our monthly magazine.

Mr. RAINEY. Is the monthly magazine sent to each member?

Mr. HALE. The monthly magazine is sent every month to each member.

Mr. RAINEY. That probably takes most of it?

Mr. HALE. That takes a good share of it; and in addition to that, a part of the fund is also used for the amelioration of the condition of comrades who are in distress.

Mr. RAINEY. Those are very worthy objects.

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir.

(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m.)

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The committee reconvened at 2.30 o'clock p. m., Hon. Joseph W. Fordney (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD H. HALE-Resumed.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rainey wants to ask you some questions, Mr. Hale.

Mr. HALE. May I make one statement before you start?
Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. HALE. During the recess I had a conference with two of our national officers who are present here, and I wish to make this statement in answer to several of Mr. Rainey's questions to me, and questions of other members of the committee, in reference to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, on certain points:

I was asked what our attitude would be toward a pension for the veterans of foreign wars, in the future. Those questions must be decided at an encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the next encampment will be held in Washington next September. Prior to that time it would not be possible for any officer of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to commit the veterans as a whole to any policy on those propositions.

Mr. RAINEY. Yes, sir. Now, the Stars and Stripes, is that your organ or newspaper?

Mr. HALE. No, sir; our organ is the Foreign Service, published by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Mr. RAINEY. The reason I asked that is that here in the Stars and Stripes I find something-did you act as correspondent of that paper? Mr. HALE. No, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Soon after one of your visits to the Ways and Means Committee room here, the Stars and Stripes contained an article announcing that petitions and letters sent by organizations of soldiers and others to the Ways and Means Committee on the subject of a bonus were being ignored by the committee and were being destroyed-thrown in the wastebasket. Now I produce here, from one State alone, the State of Pennsylvania, all these envelopes, which contain communications from members of your organization and of

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organizations similar to your organization. There are here, altogether, in these three envelopes, 872 letters to the committee on this subject from the State of Pennsylvania alone; and from the State of Pennsylvania there is also this smaller envelope full, containing 110 letters, from individuals, to the committee.

These 872 letters in these three large envelopes are form letters, induced by your organization, all of them.

These 110 individual letters from the State of Pennsylvania, we can not tell whether all of them were induced by your circular letters, or only a small part of them. Some of them were and some were not; but there are only 110 of them, and there are 872 of the others.

Now, I am simply calling your attention to the propaganda-I do not use that word in an offensive sense at all-for which your organization is responsible. Every one of these letters has received a reply from the committee, a courteous reply from the clerk, and we preserved them all, you see; and this is only one State. None of them have been thrown in the wastebasket. I am asking the clerk to insert in the record of the hearings at this point this form letter which every man received who sent to the committee one of these letters.

(The letter referred to is as follows:)

To members of the Ways and Means Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIRS: I respectfully urge upon you to report favorably on Johnson bill, relative to back pay and bonus for all soldiers, sailors, and marines.

I think we are justly entitled to this. If the war had continued for six months more, the amount of money and the great loss of lives it would have cost the Government should be taken in consideration in rendering your decision.

Yours, truly.

House of Representatives, United States, Washington, D. C.

Where served

DEAR SIR: If the war between the United States and Germany had lasted six months more, it would have cost the Government billions of dollars in money and hundreds of thousands of lives. I am urging you to vote favorably upon the Johnson bill, when it has been brought before you for adoption, either in committee room or upon the floor of Congress. Can I depend upon you for your favorable consideration?

Yours, truly.

Address,

Name, and present position,

Rank,

Outfit,

Where served

This is only one State. We preserved all these letters in the same way.

Now, inasmuch as your committee is principally responsible for this mass of letters-has been so far-we are examining you prehaps at greater length than we have others, for that reason only.

You say now that your head officers are not authorized to commit your organization to a policy for the future with reference to service pensions, at all?

Mr. HALE. 1 say the officers at the present time are not authorized to decide that question, until it has been put to the various delegates of the various posts at a national encampment.

Mr. RAINEY. Of course this committee is charged now with the responsibility of suggesting some legislation for the relief of the soldiers in the World War, but we are charged also with the responsibility of finding the money with which to pay it, and that is bother